33& 




Gass_£ 



Book. 



A 

TO MR. HARRISON GRAY OTIS,. 

A MEMBSK OF THE SENATE OF MASSACHUSETTS^ 

ON T THE PRESENT STATE 

OF 

OUB NATIONAL AFFAIRS, 

WITH 

REMARKS 

UPON 
TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH, 

BY 

WITH AK 






e « » -> 

O 3 » 



APPENDIX, '"•■"' 

written jvir, \%M \ ^1 •- y K l: a > 



BALTIMORE : 

PRT5TED AT THE OFFICE OF THE BA'TIMORE FATBIOT. 

1824. 






Office or the Baltimore Patriot, 7 
August 2, 1824. 5 

Since the publication of Col. Pickering's Review of the Cunningham 
correspondence, in which Mr. Adams' letter on the Embargo, and Mr. 
Adams himself are animadverted upon, we have received many calls for 
the letter in question. It being almost entirely out of print, we deter- 
mined to re-print it, and some time since, announced our intention to do 
so. Soon after this annunciation, we received in manuscript from Mr. 
Adams an Appendix, with permission to add it to our intended publication, 
which will be found at the close of this pamphlet. 



0W(tf# 



HaHl'TOlIB; 



Washington, March 31, 1808. 
Dear Sir, 

I HAVE received from one of my friends in Boston, a copy of 
a printed pamphlet, containing a letter from Mr. Pickering to the 
governor of the commonwealth, intended for communication to the 
legislature of the state, during the session recently concluded. But 
this object not having been accomplished, it appears to have been 
wblished by some friend of the writer, whose inducement is stated, 
;o doubt truly, to have been the importance of the matter discussed 
.n it, and the high respectability of the author. 

The subjects of this letter are the embargo, and the differences in 
controversy between our country and Great Britain — subjects upon 
which it is my misfortune, in the discharge ot my duties as a senator 
of the United States, to differ from the opinion of my colleague. 
The place where the question upon the first of them, in common 
with others of great national concern, was between him and rne,in 
our official capacities, a proper object of discussion, was the senate 
of the union. There it was discussed, and, as f^r as the constitu- 
tional authority of that body extended, there it was decided. Hav- 
ing obtained alike the concurrence of the other branch of the nation- 
al legislature, and the approbation of the president, it became the 
law of tne land, and as such I have considered it entitled to the re» 
spect and the obedience of every virtuous citizen, 

From these decisions, however, the letter in question is to be con- 
sidered in the nature of an appeal; in the first instance, to our com- 
mon constituents, the legislature of the state; and in the second, by 
the publication, to the people. To both these tribunals I shall al- 
ways hold myself accountable for every act of my public life. Yet, 
were my own political character alone implicated in the course 
which has in this instance been pursued, I should have forborne all 
notice of the proceeding, and have left my conduct in this, as in other 
cases, to tne candor and discretion of my country. 

But to this species of appeal, thus conducted, there are some ob- 
jections on constitutional grounds, which I deem it my duty to men- 
tion for the consideration of the public. On a statement of circum- 
stances attending a very important act of national legislation, a 
statement which the writer undoubtedly believed to be true, but 
which comes only from one side of the question, and which I expect 
>o prove, in the most essential points, erroneous, the writer, with the 



4 

most animated tone of energy, calls for the interposition of the com" 
mercial states, and asserts that "nothing but their sense, clearly and 
emphatically expressed, will save them from rain." This solemn 
and alarming invocation is addressed to the legislature of Massachu- 
setts, at so late a period of their session, that had it been received 
by them, they must have been compelled either to act upon the 
views of this representation, without hearing the counter statement 
of the other side, or seemingly to disregard the pressing interest of 
their constituents, by neglecting an admonition of the most stricus 
complexion. Considering the application as precedent, its tendency 
is dangerous to the public. For on the first supposition, that the le- 
gislature had been precipitated to net on the spur of such an instiga- 
tion, they must have acted on imperfect information, and under an 
excitement, not remarkably adapted to the composure of safe deliD- 
t;ation. On the second, they would have been exposed to unjust 
imputations, wi:ich, at the eve of an election, might have operated 
in the most unequitable manner upon the characters of individual 
members. 

The interposition of one or more state legislatures, to control the 
exercbe of the powers vested b) - the general c nstitution in the con- 
gress oi the United States is at least of questionable policy. The 
>iews of a state legislature are naturally and properly limited in a 
considerable d« gree to the peculiar interests of the state. The very 
objtct and formation of the national deliberative assemblies was for 
the compromise and conciliation of the interests of ail — of the wnole 
nation. If the appeal from tie regular, legitimate measures nf the 
bed) where the whole nation ib n presented, be proper to one state 
legislature, it must be so to another If the commercial slates are 
called to interpose on one hand, will not the agricultural states be 
with equal propriety summoned to interpose on the other? If the 
east is stimulated against the west, and the northern and southern 
sections are urged into collision with each other, by appeals from the 
sets of congress to the re] rescntative stales — in what are i/ieae afi- 

I. is undoubtedly the right, and may often become the duty of a 
state legislature to address that of the nation, with the expression 

of its wishes, in regard to interests peculiarly concerning the state 
itself. Nor shall I question the right of every member ot the great 
federative compact to declare its own sense oi measures interesting 
to the nation at large. But whenever the case occurs, that tins 
sense should be ''clearly and emphatically' 1 expressed, it ought sure- 
ly to be predicated upon a full and impartial consideration of the 
whole subject — not under the stimulus of a one-sided representation 
—far less upon the impulse of conjectures and suspicions. It is not 
through the medium of personal sensibility, nor of party bias, nor of 
professional occupation, nor of geographical position, that the whole 
truth can be discerned, of questions involving the rights and inter- 
ests of this extensive union. When the discussion is urged upon a 
siate legislature, the first call upon its members should be to cast all 
their feelings and interests as the citizens cf a single s'.ate into the 
common stock of the national concern. 



Should the occurrence upon which an appeal is made from the 
councils of the nation, to those of a single state be one upon which 
the representation of the state had been divided, and the member 
who found himself in the minority, felt himself impelled by a sense 
of duty, to invoke the interposition of his constituents, it would seem 
that both in justice to them, and in candour to his colleague, some 
notice of such intention should be given to him, that he too might be 
prepared to exhibit his views of the subject upon which the differ- 
ences of opinion had taken place; or at least that the resort should 
be had, at such a period of time as would leave it within the reach 
of possibility for his representations to be received, by their common 
constituents, before they would be compelled to decide on the mer- 
its of the case. 

The fairness and propriety of this course of proceeding must be so 
obvious that it is difficult to conceive of the propriety of any other. 
Yet it presents another inconvenience which must necessarily result 
from this practice of appellate legislation. When one of the sena- 
tors from a state proclaims to his constituents that a particular 
measure, or system of measures which has received the vote and 
support of his colleague, are pernicious and destructive to those in- 
terests which both are bound by the most sacred of ties, with zeal 
and fidelity to promote, the denunciation of the measures amounts 
to little less than a denunciation of the man. The advocate of a pol- 
icy thus reprobated must feel himself summoned by every motive of 
self defence to vindicate his conduct : and if his general sense of his 
official duties would bind him to the industrious devotion of his whole 
time to the public business of the session, the hours which he might 
be forced to employ for his own justification, would of course be de- 
ducted from the discharge of his more regular and appropriate 
functions. Should these occasions frequently recur, they could not 
fail to interfere with the due performance of the public business. 
Nor can 1 forbear to remark the tendency of such antagonizing ap- 
peals to distract the councils of the state in its own legislature, to 
destroy its influence, and expose it to derision, in the presence of its 
sister states, and to produce between the colleagues themselves mu- 
tual asperities and rancors, until the great concerns of the nation 
would degenerate into the puny controversies of personal alterca? 
tion. 

It is therefore with extreme reluctance that I enter upon this dis- 
cussion. In developing my own views, and the principles which 
have governed my conduct in relation to our foreign affairs, and 
particularly to the embargo, some very material differences in point 
of fact as well as of opinion, will be found between my statements, 
and those of the letter, which aione can apologise for this. They 
>vi]l not, I trust, be deemed in any degree disrespectful to the wri- 
ter Far more pleasing would it have been to me, could that honest 
and anxious pursuit x>f the policy best calculated to promote the 
honor and welfare of our country, which, 1 trust, is felt with equal 
ardor by us both, have resulted in the sa:ne opinions, and h.^ve given 
them the vigor of united exertion. There is a candor and liberality 
ci conduct and of sentiment due from associates in tne sime public 
tr.arge, towards eacii other, necessary to their individual reputation, 
' A 2 



to their common influence, and to their public usefulness. In mil 
lepublicaii government, where the power of the nation consists alone 
in the sympathies of opinion, this reciprocal deference, this open- 
hearted imputation of honest intentions, is the only adamant at once 
attractive and impenetrable, that can bear, unshattered, all the 
thunder of foreign hostility. Ever since I have had the honor of a 
seal in the national councils, I have extended it to every department 
ci the government. However differing in my conclusions, upon 
questions of the highest moment, from any other man, of whatever 
party, I have never, upon suspicion, imputed his conduct to corrup- 
tion. It this confidence argues ignorance of public men and public 
affairs, to that ignorance I must plead guilty. I know, indeed, 
enough of human nature, to be sensible that vigilant observation is 
at all times, and that suspicion may occasionally become necessary, 
upon the conduct of men in power. But I know as well that confi- 
dence is the only ct ment of an elective government. Election is the 
very test of confidence — and its periodical return is the constitution- 
al check upon its abuse; of *hich the electors must or course be the 
sole judges. For the exercise of power, where man is free, confi- 
dence is indispensable — and when it once totally fails — when the 
men to whom the people have committed the application of their 
iorce, for their benefit, are to be presumed the vilest of mankind, 
the very foundation of the social compact must be dissolved. To- 
wards the gentleman whose official station resuits from the confi- 
dence of the same legislature, by whose appointment I have the hon- 
or of holding a similar trust, I have thought this confidence pecu- 
liarly due from me, nor should I now notice his letter, notwithstand- 
ing the disapprobation it so obviously implies, at the course which I 
have pursued in relation to the subjects of which it treats, did it not 
appear to me calculated to produce upon the public mind, impres- 
sions unfavorable to the rights and interests of the nation. 

Having understood that a motion in the senate of Massachusetts 
was made by you, requesting the governor to transmit Mr. Picker- 
ing's letter to the legislature, together with such communications, 
relating to public affairs, as he might have received from me, I avail 
myself of th^t circumstance, and of the friendship which has so long 
subsisted between us, to take the liberty of addressing this letter, 
intended for publication, to you.— Very few of the facts which I shall 
state will rest upon information peculiar to myself. — Most of them 
will stand upon the basis of official documents, or of public and un- 
disputed notoriety. For my opinions, though fully persuaded, that 
even where differing from your own, they will meet with a fair 
and liberal judge in you, yet of the public I ask neither favor nor in- 
dulgence. Pretending to no extraordinary credit from the authority 
of the writer, I am sensible they must fall by their own weakness, 
or stand by their o-vn strength. 

The first remark which obtrudes itself upon the mind, on the pe- 
vusal of Mr. Pickering's letter is, that in enumerating all the fireten- 
ces (for he thinks there are no causes) for the embargo, and for a 
war with Great Britain, he has totally omitted the British orders of 
council of November li, !8G~ — those orders, under which millions 
©t the property of our fellow- citizens, are now detained in Britith 



hands, or confiscated to British captors — those orders, under which 
ten-fold as many millions of the same property would have been at 
this moment in the same predicament, had they not been saved from 
exfiosure to it by the embargo — those orders, which if once submitted 
to and carried to the extent of their principles, would not have left 
an inch of American canvas upon the ocean, but unde~ British taxa- 
tion. An attentive reader of the letter, without other information, 
would not even suspect their existence — They are inHeed in one or 
two passages, faintly and darkly alluded to under the justifying de- 
scription of "the orders of the British government, retaliating the 
French imperial decree :" but as causes for the embargo, or as pos- 
sible causes or even firetences of war with Great Britain, they are 
not only unnoticed, but their very existence is by direct implication 
denied. 

It is indeed true, that these orders were not officially communicat- 
ed with the president's message recommending the embargo. They 
had not been officially received — but tney were announced in sev- 
eral paragraphs from London and Liverpool newspapers of the 10th, 
11th, and 12th of November, which appeared in the National Intel- 
ligencer of 18th December, the day upon which the embargo mes- 
sage was sent to congress. The British government had taken care 
that they should not be authentically known before their time : for 
the very same newspapers which gave this inofficial notice of these 
orders, announced also the departure of Mr. Rose, upon a special 
mission to the United States. And we now know, that of these all- 
devouring instruments of rafiine^ Mr. Rose was not even informed. 
His mission was professedly a mission of conciliation and reparation 
for a flagrant, enormous, acknowledged outrage. But he was not 
sent with these orders of council in his hands. His text was the 
disavowal of admiral Berkley's conduct —the commentary was to be 
discovered on another page of the British ministerial policy — on the 
face of Mr. Rose's instructions, these orders of council were as invis- 
ible as they are on that of Mr. Pickering's letter. 

They were not merely without official authenticity. Rumors had 
for several weeks been in circulation, derived from English prints, 
and from private correspondences, that such orders were to issue; 
and no inconsiderable pains were taken here to discredit the fact. 
Assurances were given that there was reason to believe no such or- 
ders to be contemplated. Suspicion was lulled by declarations equiv- 
alent nearly to a positive denial; and these opiates were continued 
for weeks after the embargo was laid, until ATr. Erskine received 
instructions to make the official communication of the orders them- 
selves, in their proper shape, to our government. 

Yet, although thus unauthenticated, and even although thus in 
some sort denied, tne probability of the circumstances under which 
they were announced, and t*ie sweeping tendency of their effects, 
formed to my understanding a powerful motive, and together with 
the papers sent by the president, and his express recommendation, a 
decisive one, for assenting to th. embargo As a precautionary 
measure, I believed it would tescu^ an immense property from de- 
predation, if the orders should prove authentic. If the alarm was 
groundless it must very soon be disproved, and the embargo might 
be removed with the danger. 



8 

The emission of all notice of these facts in the pressing enquiries 
;c why the embargo was laid?" is the more surprising, because they 
.re of all the facts the most material, upon a fair and impartial 
examination of the expediency of that act, when it passed — and be- 
cause these orders, together with the subsequent "retaliating" <!e - 
crees of France and Spain, have furnished the only reasons upon 
which I have acquiesced in its continuance to this day. If dulv 
weighed, they will save us the trouble of resorting to jealousies of 
secret corruption, and the imaginary terrors of Napoleon for the 
real cause of the embargo. These are fictions of foreign invention. 
The French emperor hzdnot declared that he would have no neu- 
trals — he had not required that our ports should be shut against Bri- 
tish commerce; — but the orders of council, if submitted to, would 
have degraded us to the condiiio?i of colonies. If resisted, would 
have fattened the wolves of plunder with our spoils. The embargo 
was the only shelter from the tempest — the last refuge of our viola- 
ted peace. 

I have indeed been myself of opinion, that the embargo must in 
its nature be a temporary expedient, and that preparation manifest- 
i g a determination of resistance against these outrageous violations 
of our neutral rights, ought at least to have been made a subject of 
serious consideration in congress- I have believed,^and do still be- 
lieve, that our internal resources are competent to the establishment 
and maintenance of a naval force public and private, if not fully 
adequate to the protection and defence of our commerce, at least 
sufficient to induce a retreat from those hostilities, and to deter from 
a renewal of them, by either of the warring parties; and that a 
system to that effect might be formed, ultimately far more economi- 
cal, and certainly more energetic, than a three years embarg o. Ve- 
ry scon after the closure of our ports, I did submit to the considera- 
tion of the senate, a proposition for the appointment of a committee 
to institute an enquiry to this end. But my resolution met no encour- 
agement. Attempts of a similar nature have been made in the 
house of representatives^ but have been equally discountenanced ; 
and from these determinations, by decided majorities of both houses, 
I am not sufficiently confident in the superiority of my own wisdom 
to appeal by a topical application, to the congenial feelings of any 
one — not even of my own native section of the union. 

The embargo, however, is a restriction always under our own con- 
trol. It was a measure altogether of defence, and experiment. If 
it was injudiciously or over hastily laid, it has been every day since 
its adoption open to a repeal; if it should prove ineffectual tor the 
purposes it was meant to secure, a single day will suffice to unbar 
the doors. Still believing it a measure justified by the circumstances 
of the time, I am ready to admit that those who thought otherwise 
may have had a wiser foresight of events, and a sounder judgment 
of the then existing state of tilings than the majority of the national 
legislature, and the president. It has been approved by several of 
the state legislatures, and among the rest by our own. Yet of all 
its effects we are stiil unable to judge with ctrtai ity. It must still 
abiae the test of futurity. I shall a,dd that there were other motives, 
which had their operation in contributing to the passage of the ac*, 



9 

unnoticed by Mr. Pickering, and which having now ceased, will abo 
be left unnoticed by me. The orders of council of the 11th Nov. 
still subsist in all their force ; and are now confirmed, with the ad- 
dition of caseation, by act of parliament. 

As they stand in front of the real causes for the embargo, so they 
are entitled to the same pre-eminence in enumerating the causes of 
hostility, which the British ministers are accumulating upon our for- 
bearance. They strike at the root of our independence. They as- 
sume the principle that we shall have no commerce in time of war, 
but with her dominions, and as tributaries to her. The exclusive 
confinement of commerce to the mother country, is the great prin- 
ciple of the modern colonial system j and should we by a dereliction 
of our rights at this momentous stride of encroachment, surrender 
our commercial freedom without a struggle, Britain has but a sin- 
gle step more to take, and she brings us back to the stamp act and 
the tea tacc. 

Yet these orders — thus fatal to the liberties for which the heroes 
of our revolution toiled and bled — thus studiously concealed until 
the moment when they burst upon our heads — thus issued at the 
very instant when a mission of atonement was professedly sent — in 
these orders we are to see nothing but a " retaliating order upon 
France" — in these orders, we must not find so much as a cause — 
nay, not so much as a pretence, for complaint against Great Britain. 

To my mind, sir, in comparison with those orders, the three causes 
to which Mr. Pickering explicitly limits our grounds for a rupture 
with England, might indeed be justly denominated pretences — in 
comparison with them former aggressions sink into insignificance — 
To argue upon the subject of our disputes with Britain, or upon the 
embargo, and keep them out of sight, is like laying your finger over 
the unit before a series of noughts, and then arithmetically proving 
that they are all nothing. 

It is not however in a mere omission, nor yet in the history of the 
embargo, that the inaccuracies of the statement I am examining 
have given me the most serious concern. It is in the view taken of 
the questions in controversy between us and Britain. The wisdom 
of the embargo is a question of great, but transient magnitude, and 
omission saciifices no national right. Mr. Pickering's object was to 
dissuade the nation from a war with England, into which he suspect- 
ed the adminisiration was plunging us, under French compulsion. 
But the tendency of his pamphlet is to reconcile the nation, or at 
least the commercial states, to the servitude of British protection, 
and war witn ail the rest of Europe. Hence England is represent- 
ed as contending for the common liberties of mankind and our only- 
safeguard against the ambition and injustice of France. Hence all 
our sensibilities are invoked in her favor, and all our antipathies 
against her antagonist. Hence too all the subjects of difference be 
tween us and Britain are alleged to be on our part mere pretences, 
of which the right is unequivocally pronounced to be on her side. 
Proceeding from a senator of the United States, specially charged 
as a member of the executive with the maintenance of the nation's 
rights against foreign powers, and at a moment extremely critical 
of pending negotiation upon all the points thus delineated, this for m- 



10 

al abandonment of the American cause, this summons of uncondi- 
tional surrender to the pretensions of our antagonist, is in my mind 
highly alarming. It becomes therefore a duty to which every other 
consideration must yield, to point out the errors of this representa- 
tion. Before nve strike the standard of the nation, let us at least ex- 
amine the fiurfiort of the summons. 

And first, with respect to the impressment of our seamen. — We 
are told that "the taking of British seamen found on board our 
merchant vessels, by British ships of war, is agreeably to a right, 
claimed and exercised for ages." It is obvious that this claim and 
exercise of ages, could not apply to us, as an independent people. 
If the right was claimed and exercised while our vessels were navi- 
gating under the British flag, it could not authorise the same claim 
when their owners have become the citizens of a sovereign state. 
As a relict of colonial servitude, whatever may be the claim of 
Great Britain, it surely can be no ground for contending that it is 
entitled to our submission. 

If it be meant that the right has been claimed and exercised for 
ages over the merchant vessels of other nations, I apprehend it is a 
mistake The case never occurred with sufficient frequency to con- 
stitute even a practice muchless a right. If it had been either, it would 
have been noticed by some of the writers on the laws of nations. 
The truth is, the question arose out of American independence — 
from the severance of one nation into two. It was never made a 
question between any other nations. There is therefore no right of 
prescription. 

But, it seems, it has also been claimed and exercised, during the 
whole of the three administrations of our national government. And 
is it meant to be asserted that this claim and exercise constitute a 
right? If it is, I appeal to the uniform, unceasing, and urgent re- 
monstrances of the three administrations — I appeal not only to the 
warm feelings, but, to the cool justice of the American people — 
nay, I appeal to the sound sense and honorable sentiment of the 
British nation itself, which, however it may have submitted at home 
to this practice, never would tolerate its sanction by law, against the 
assertion. If it is not, how can it be affirmed that it is on our part a 
mere pretence ? 

But tne first merchant of the United States in answer to Mr. Pick- 
ering's late enquiries, has informed him that since the affair of the 
Chesapeake there has been no cause of complaint — that he could 
not find a single instance where they had taken one man out of a 
merchant vessel Who it is that enjoys the dignity of first mer- 
chant of the United States, >ve are not informed. But if he had 
applied to many merchants in Boston, as respectable as any in the 
United States, they could have told him of a valuable vessel and 
cargo, totally lost upon the coast of England, late in August last, 
and solely in consequence of having hai two of her men, native 
Americans, taken from her by impressment, two months after the 
affair of the Chesapeake. 

On the 15th of October, the king of England issued his proclama- 
tion, con?nanding- his naval officers, to impress his subjects from 
neutral vessel?. This proclamation is represented as merely "re~ 



ii 

qui/mg the return of his subjects, the seamen especially, from for- 
eign countries," and then "it is an acknowledged principle that eve- 
ry nation has a right to the service of its subjects in time of war." Is 
this, sir, a correct statement either of the proclamation, or of tne 
question it involves in which our right is concerned? The king of 
England's right to the service of his subjects in time of war is no- 
thing to us. The question is, whether he has a right to seize them 
forcibly on board of our vessels while under contract of service to 
our citizens, within our jurisdiction upon the high seas? And whether 
he has a right expressly to command his naval officers to seize them 
— Is this an acknowledged principle? Certainly not Why then is 
this proclamation described as founded upon uncontested principle? 
And why is the command, so justly offensive to us, and so mischiev- 
ous as it might then have been made in execution, altogether omit- 
ted? 

But it is not the taking of British subjects from our vessels, it is the 
taking under colour of that pretence, our own, native American citi- 
zens, which constitutes the most galling aggravation of this merciless 
practice. Yet even this, we are told, is but a Jiretence — for three 
reasons. 

1. Because the number of citizens thus taken is small, 

2. Because it a» ises only from the impossibility of distinguishing En- 

glishmen from Americans. 
1. Because, such impressed American citizens are delivered up, on 
duly authenticated proof. 

1. Small and great in point of numbers, are relative terms. To 
suppose that the native Americans form a small proportion of the 
whole number impressed is a mistake— the reverse is the fact. Ex- 
amine the official returns from the department of state. They give 
the names of between four and five thousand men impressed since 
the commencement of the present war. Of which number, not one 
fifth part were British subjects. The number of naturalized 
Americans ccald not have amounted to one-tenth. I hazard little in 
saying, that more than three fourths were native Americans, If jt 
be said that some of these men, though appearing on the face of the 
returns, American citizens, were really British subjects, and had 
fraudulently procured their protections, I reply that this number 
must be far exceeded by the cases of citizens impressed, which ne* 
ver reach the department of state. The American consul at London 
estimates the number of impressments during the war, at nearly 
three times the amount of the names returned. If the nature of the 
offence be considered in its true colours, tc a people having a ju^t 
sense of personal liberty and security, it is in every single instance, 
of a malignity not inferior to that of murder The very same act, 
when committed by the recruiting officer of one nation within the 
territories of another, is by the universal law and usage of nations 
punished with death. Suppose the crime had, in every instance, as 
by its consequences it has been in many, deliberate murder — would 
it answer or silence the voice of our complaints to be told, that the 
number was small? 

2. The impossibility of distinguishing English from American sea- 
men is not the only, nor even the most frequent occasion of impiess- 



12 

ment. Look again into the returns from the department of state— 
you will see that the officers take our men without pretending to en- 
quire where they were born; sometimes merely to show their ani- 
mosity or their contempt for cur country; sometimes from the wan- 
tonness of power. When they manifest the most tender regard for 
the neutral rights of America, they lament that they want the men. 
They regret the necessity, but they must have their complement. 
When we complain of these enormities, we are answered that the 
acts of such officers were unauthorised; that the commanders of men 
of war, are an unruly set of men, for whose violence their own go- 
vernment cannot always be answerable; that enquiry shall be made 
— a court martial is sometimes mentioned — and the issue of Whitby's 
court martial has taught us what relief is to be expected from that 
There are even examples I am told, when such officers have been 
put upon the yellow list. But thh is a rare exception — the ordinary 
issue, when the act is disavowed, is the promotion of the actor. 

3. The impressed native American citizens, however, upon duly 
authenticated proofs are delivered up. Indeed! how unreasonable 
then were complaint! how effectual a remedy then for the wrong! 
An American vessel bound, bound to an European port, has two, 
three, or four native Americans impressed by a British man of war, 
bound to the East or West Indies. When the American captain ar- 
rives at his port of destination, he makes his protest, and sends it to 
the nearest American minister or consul. When Ive returns home, 
he transmits the duplicate of his protest to the secretary of state. In 
process of time, the names of the impressed men, and of the ship in- 
to which they have been impressed, are received by the agent in 
London— he makes his demand that the men may be delivered up — 
the lords of the admiralty, after a reasonaole time for er.quiry and 
advisement, return for answer, that the ship is on a foreign station, 
and that their lordships can, therefore, take no further steps in the 
matter — or, that the ship has been taken, and that the men have 
been received in exchange for French prisoners — or that the men 
ha$ no protections (the impressing officers often having taken them 
from the men) — or, that the men were fir 'ob ably British subjects— or, 
that they have entered, and taken the bounty; (to which the officers 
know how to reduce them) — or, that they have been married, or set- 
tled in England. In all these cases, without further ceremony, their 
discharge is refused. Sometimes, their lordships, in a vein of hu- 
mor, inform the agent, that the man has been discharged as unser* 
viceable. Sometimes, in a sterner tone, they say he was an imftostor. 
Or perhaps, by way of consolation to his relatives and friends, they 
report that he has fallen in battle, against nations in amity with his 
country. Sometimes they coolly return, that there is no such man, 
on board the shift; and what has become of him, the agonies of a wife 
and children in his native land may be left to conjecture. When all 
these and many other such apologies for refusal fail, the native 
American is discharged — and when, by the charitable aid of his go- 
vernment, he has found his way home, he comes to be informed, that 
all is as it should be — that the number of his fellow. sufferers is 
small — that it was impossible to distinguish him from an Englishman 
—and that he was delivered up, on duly authenticated proof . 



i3 

Enough of this disgusting subject— I cannot stop to calculate how 
many of these wretched victims are natives of Massachusetts, and 
how many natives of Virginia I cannot stop to solve that knotty 
question of national jurisprudence, whether some of them might not 
possibly be slaves, and therefore not citizens of the United States — I 
cannot stay to account for the wonder, why, poor, and ignorant, and 
friendless, as most of them are, the voice of their complaints is so 
seldom heard in the navigating states. I admit that we have endured 
this cruel indignity, through all the administrations of the general 
government. I acknowledge that Britain claims the right of seiz- 
ing her subjects in our merchant vessels, and that even if we could 
acknowledge it, the line of discrimination would be difficult to draw. 
We are not in a condition to maintain right, by war, and as the Bri- 
tish government have been more than once on the point of giving it 
up of their own accord, I would still hope for the day when return- 
ing justice shall induce them to abandon it, without compulsion.— 
Her subjects we do not want. The degree of protection which we 
are bound to extend to them, cannot equal the claim of our own cit- 
izens. I would subscribe to any compromise of this contest, con- 
sistent with the rights of sovereignty, the duties of humanity, and 
the principles of reciprocity : but to the right of forcing even her 
own subjects out of our merchant vessels on the high seas, I never 
can assent. 

The second point upon which Mr. Pickering defends the preten- 
sions of Great Britain, is her denial to neutral nations of the right 
of prosecution with her enemies and their colonies, any commerce 
from which they are excluded in time of peace- His statement of 
this case adopts the British doctrine, as sound. The right* as on 
the question of impressment, so on this, is surrender at discretion — 
and it is equally defective in point of fact. 

In the first place, the claim of Great Britain, is not to "a right of 
imposing on this neutral commerce some limits and restraints " but 
of interdicting it altogether, at her pleasure, of interdicting it with- 
out a moment's notice to neutrals, after solemn decisions of her 
courts of admiralty, and formal «xknowkdgments of her ministers, 
that it is a lawful trade — and, on such a sudden, unnotified 
interdiction, of pouncing upon <t!l neutral commerce navigating up- 
on the faith of her decisions and acknowledgments, and of gorging 
with confiscation the greediness of her comers— -this is the right 
claimed by Britain— this is the power she has exercised — what Mr. 
Pickering calls "limits and restraints," she calls relaxations of her 
right. 

It is but little more than two years, since this qustion was agitated 
both in England and America, witn as much zeal, energy and abili- 
ty, as ever was displayed upon any question of national law. -The 
British side was supported by sir William Scott, Mr Ward, and 
the author of War in Disguise. But even in Britain their doctrine 
was refuted to demonstration by the Edinburg reviewers. In Ame- 
rica, the rights of our country were maintained by numerous writers 
profoundly skilled in the science of national and maritime law. 
The answer to War in Disguise was ascribed to a gentleman whose 
talents are universally acknowledged, and who by his official situa- 
B 



1$ 

tions had been required thoroughly to investigate every question of 
conffi' t between neutral and belligerent rights which has occurred 
in the history of modern war. Mr Gore and Mr. Pinkney, our two 
commissioners at London, under Mr. Jay's treaty, the former, in a 
train of cool, conclusive argument addressed to Mr. Madison, the 
latter in a memorial of splendid eloquence from the merchants at 
Baltimore supported the same cause; memorials, drawn by lawyers 
of distinguished eminence, by merchants of the highest character, 
and by state smen of long experience in our national councils, came 
from Saiem, from Boston, from New Haven, from New York, and 
from Philadelphia, together wi h remonstrances to the same effect 
from Newburyport, Newport, Norfolk, and Charleston. This ac- 
cumulated mass of legal learning, of commercial information, and 
of national sentiment, from almost every inhabited spot upon < ur 
shores, and from one extremity of the union to the other, confirmed 
by the unanswered and unanswerable memorial of Mr. Monroe to 
the British minister, and by the elaborate research and irresistible 
reasoning of the ex amino tion of the British doctrine, was also made 
a subject of full, and deliberate discussion in the senate of the 
United States. A committee of seven members of that body, after 
three weeks of arduous investigation, reported three resolutions, 
the first of which was in these words, "resobved y that the capture 
and condemnation, under the orders of the British government, and 
adjudications of their courts of admiralty of American vessels and 
their cargoes, on the pretext of their being employed in a trade with 
the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace, is an un- 
provoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of these 
United States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroach- 
ment ufion their national independence" 

On the 13th of February, 1806, the question upon the adoption of 
this resolution, was taken in the senate. The yeas and nays were 
required; but not a solitary nay was heard in answer. It was adopt- 
ed by the unanimous voice of all the senators present. They were 
twenty-eight in number v and among them stands recorded the name 
«f Mi Pickering. 

Let us remember that this was a question most peculiarly and 
immediately of co m m ercial y and not agricultural interest; that it 
arose from a call, loud, energetic, and unanimous, from all the mer- 
chants of the United States upon congress, for the national interpo- 
sition; that many of the memorials invoked all the energy of the 
legislature, and pledged the lives and properties of the memorialists 
in support of any measures which congress might deem necessary 
to vindicate those rights. Negotiation was particularly recom- 
mended from Boston, and elsewhere — negociation was adopted — 
negot ia ion has failed — and now Mr. Pickering tells us that Great 
Britain has claimed and maintained her right! He argues that her 
claim is just — and is not sparing of censure upon those who still 
consider it as a serious cause of complaint. 

But there was one point of view in which the British doctrine on 
this question was then only considered incidentally in the United 
States — because it was not deemed material for the discussion of 
our rights. We examined it chiefly as affecting the principles as 



15 

between a belligerent and a neutral power. Bat in fact it was an 
infringement of the rights of war, as well as the rights of peace, 
It was an unjustifiable enlargement of the sphere of hostile opera- 
tions. The enemies of Great Britain had, by the universal law of 
nations, a right to the benefits of neutral commerce within their do- 
minions (subject to the exceptions of actual blockade and contraband) 
as well as neutral nations have a right to trade with them* The ex* 
elusion from that commerce by this new principle of warfare which 
Britain, in defiance of all immemorial national usages, undertook by 
her single authority to establish, but too naturally led her enemiesta 
resort to new and extraordinary principles, by which in their turn 
they might retaliate this injury upon her. The pretence upon 
which Britain in the first instance had attempted to colour her in- 
justice, was a miserable fiction* It was an argument against fact. 
Her reasoning was, that a neutral vessel by mere admission in time 
*>f war, into ports from which it should have been excluded in time 
of peace, became thereby deprived of its national character, and 
zjiso facto was transformed into enemy's property 

Such was the basis upon which arose the far famed rule of the war 
of 1756 — such was the foundation upon which Britain claimed and 
maintained this supposed right of adding that new instrument of de- 
solation to the horrors of war — it was distressing to her enemy- 
yes! had she adopted the practice of dealing with them iti poison- 
had Mr. Fox accepted the service of the man who offered to rid 
him of the French emperor by assassination, and had the attempt 
succeeded, it would have been Less distressing to France than this 
rule of the war of 1756; and not more unjustifiable. Mr. Fox had 
too fair a mind for either, but his comprehensive and liberal spirit 
was discarded, with the cabinet which he had formed. 

It has been the struggle of reason and humanity, and above all of 
Christianity, for two thousand years, to mitigate the rigors of that 
scourge of humankj, war. It is now the struggle of Britain to ag- 
gravate them. Her rule of the war of 1756, in itself and in its ef- 
fects, was one of the deadliest poisons, in which it was possible for 
her to tinge the weapons of her hostility. 

In itself and in its effects, I say — for the French decrees of Berlin 
and of Milan, the Spanish and Dutch decrees of the same or the 
like tenor, and her own orders of January and November— these 
alternations of licensed pillage, this eager competition between her 
and her enemies for the honor of giving the last stroke to the vitals 
of maritime neutrality, aU are justly attributable to their assump- 
tion and exercise of this single principle. The rule of the war of 
1756 was the root from which all the rest are but suckers, still at eve- 
ry shoot growing ranker in luxuriance, 

In the last decrees of France and Spain, her own ingenious fiction 
is adopted* and under them, every neutral vessel that submits to 
English search, has been carried into an Engibh port, or paid tax to 
the English government, is declared denationalized; that is, to have 
lost her national character, and to have become English property. 
This is cruel in execution; absurd in argument. To refute it were 
folly, for to the understanding of a child it refutes itself. But it is 
the reasoning of British jurists. It is the simple application to the 



16 

circumstances and powers of France, of the rule of the war of 
1756. 

I am not the apologist of France and Spain. I have no national 
partialities; no national attachments but to my own country. I shall 
never undertake to justify or palliate the insults or injuries of aDy 
foreign power to that country which is dearer to me than life. If 
the voice of reason and justice could be heard by France and Spain, 
they would say — you have done wrong to make the injustice of your 
enemy towards neutrals the measure of your own. If she chastises 
with whips, do not you chastise with scorpions. Whether France 
would listen to this language, I know not. The most enormous in- 
fractions of our rights, hitherto committed by her, have been more 
in menace than in accomplishment. The alarm has been justly 
great, the anticipation threatening; but the amount of actual injury 
small. But to Britain, what can we say? It we attempt to raise our 
voices, hei minister has declared to Mr. Pinkney that she will not 
hear. The only reason she assigns for her recent orders of council 
is, that France proceeds on the same principles. It is only by the 
light of blazing temples, and amid the groans of women and chil- 
dren perishing in the ruins of the sanctuaries of domestic habita- 
tion at Copenhagen, that we can expect our remonstrances against 
this source of proceeding will be heard. 

Let us come to the third and last of the causes of complaint, 
which are represented as so frivolous and so unfounded — "the un- 
fortunate affair of the Chesapeake." The orders of admiral Berk- 
ley, under which this outrage was committed, have been disavowed 
by his government. General professions of a willingness to make 
reparation for it, have been lavished in profusion; and we are now 
instructed to take these professions for endeavors; to believe them 
sincere, because his Britannic majesty sent us a special envoy; and 
to cast the odium upon our own government. 

I have already told you, that I am not one of those who deem sus- 
picion and distrust, in the highest order of political virtue?. Base- 
less suspicion is, in my estimation, a vice, as pernicious in the man- 
agement of public affairs, as it is fatal to the happiness of a domes- 
tic life. When, therefore, the British ministers have declared their 
disposition to make ample reparation for an injury of a most atro- 
cious character, committed by an officer of nigh rank, and, as they 
say, utterly without authoiity, I should most readily believe them, 
Wre their professions not positively contradicted by facts of more 
powerful eloquence than words. 

Have such facts occurred? 1 will not again allude to the circum- 
stances of -Mr. Rose's departure upon his mission at such a precise 
point of time, that his commission and the orders of council of 11th 
November, might have been signed with the same pen full of ink. 
Thesubjec s were not immediately connected with each other, and 
his majesty did not choose to associate distinct topics of negociation. 
The attack upon ihe Chesapeake was disavowed; and ample repa- 
ration was withheld, only because with the demand for satisfaction 
upon tnat injury, the American government had coupled a demand 
for the cessation of others; alike in kind, but of minor aggravation. 
But had reparation really been intended, would it not have be?n 



17 

offered, not in vague and general terms, but in precise and specific 
proposals? Were any such made? None. But it is said, Mr Mon- 
roe was restricted from negociating upon that subject apart; and 
therefore Iv Rose was to be sent to Washington, charged with 
this single object; and without authority to treat upon or even to 
discuss any other. 4 Mr. Rose arrives. The American government 
readily determine to treat upon the Chesapeake affair* separately 
from all others; but before Mr. Rose sets his foot on shore, in pur- 
suance of a pretension made before by Mr. Canning, he connects 
with the negociation, a subject far more distinct from the butchery 
of the Chesapeake, than the general impressment of our seamen. I 
mean the proclamation, interdicting to British ships of war, the en- 
trance of our harbors. 

The great obstacle which has always interfered with the adjust- 
ment of our differences with Britain, has been that she would not ac- 
quiesce in the only principle upon which fair negotiation between in- 
dependent nations can be conducted, the principle of reciprocity — that 
she refuses the application to us of the claim which she asserts for 
herself. The forcible taking of men from an American vessel, was 
an essential part of the outrage upon the Chesapeake. It was the os- 
tensible purpose for which that act of war unproclaimed, was commit- 
ted. The president's proclamation was a subsequent act, and was 
avowedly founded upon many similar aggressions, of which that was 
only the most aggravated. 

If then Britain could, with any colour of reason, claim that the gen- 
eral question of impressment should be laid out of the case altogeth- 
er, she ought upon the principle of reciprocity, to have laid equally 
out of the case, the proclamation, a measure so easily separable from 
it, and in its nature merely defensive When therefore she mad© 
the repeal of the proclamation an indispensable preliminary to alldis- 
cussions upon the nature and extent of that reparation which she nad 
offered, sae refused to treat with us upon the footing >f an indepen- 
dent power S'ne insisted upon an act of self-degradation on our part 3 
before she would even teil us what redress she would condescend to 
grant for a great and acknowledged wrong. This was a condkiGii 
which she -ouid not but know to be inadmissible, and is of itself 
pro f ueariy conclusive that her cabinet never intended to make, foy 
that wrong, any reparation at alL \ 

But this is not all— it cannot be forgotten, that when thaJkattroeionSi 
deed was committed, .amidst the general burst of indignation which 
resounded from ev ry part of the union, there were among us a small 
number of ue- sons, who upon the opinion that Berkley's orders vere 
autnr^isen by his government, undertook ta justify them in their ful- 
lest extent— thest- ideas, probably ftrst propagated by British official 
characters, in this country, were persisted in until uie disavowal of 
the British government took away the necessity for persevering m 
them, a.nd gave n;; ice where me next position was to be taken. 
This patriotic reasoning, however, had oeen so satisfactory it Hali- 
fax, in • compiim-mca > letters were receive i from admiral Berk- 
ley in-. <£ if, »ig'.ily approving the spirit in they ■ ei e inculca- 
ted, and remarking now easily Jieacc y between trie Juiced biates^nd 
B % 



18 

Britain might be preserved, if that measure uf our national i 
could be made the prevailing standard of the country. 

When the news arrived in England, although the general senti- 
ment of the nation was not prepared for the formal avowal and jus- 
tification of this unparallelled aggression, yet th^re were not want- 
ing persons there, ready to claim and maintain the light of searching 
national ships foj deserters. It was said at the time, bu r for this we 
must of course rest upon the credit of inofficial authority, to have 
been made a serious question in the cabinet council; nor was its de- 
termination there ascribed to the eloquence of the gentleman who 
became the official organ of its communication — add to tkis, a cir- 
cumstance, which without claiming the irrefragable credence of a 
diplomatic note, has yet its weight upon the common sense of man- 
kind; that in all the daily newspapers known to be in the ministerial 
interest, Berkley was justified and applauded in every variety of 
form that publication could assume, excepting only that of official 
proclamation. The only part of his orders there disapproved was 
the reciprocal offer which he made of submitting his own ship to be 
searched in return — that was very unequivocally disclaimed — the 
ruffian right of superior force, was the solid base upon which the 
claim wa3 asserted, and so familiar was this argument grown to the 
casuists of British national jurisprudence, that the right of a British 
man of war to search an American frigate, was to them a self evident 
proof against the ri^ht of the American frigate to search the British 
man of war. The same tone has been constantly kept up, until our 
accounts of latest date; and have been recently further invigorated 
by a very explicit call for war with the United States, which they* 
contend could be of no possible injury to Britain, and which they 
urge upon the ministry as affording them an excellent opportunity 
to accomplish a dismemberment of this union. These sentiments have 
even been avowed in parliament, where the nobleman who moved 
the address of the house of lords in answer to the king's speech, de- 
clared that the right of searching national ships, ought to be main- 
tained against the Americans, and disclaimed only with respect to 
European sovereigns. 

In the mean time, admiral Berkley, by a court martial of his own 
subordinate officers, hung one of the men taken from the Chesa- 
peake, and called his name Jenkin Ratford. There was, according 
to the answer so frequently given by the lords of the admiralty, up- 
on applications for the discharge of impressed Americans, no such 
man on board the ship. The man thus executed had been taken 
from the Chesapeake by the name of Wilson. It is «aid that on his 
trial he was identified by one or two witnesses who knew him, and 
lhat before he was turned off he confessed his name was Ratford, and 
that he was born in England — bur it has also been said, that Ratford 
is now living in Pennsylvania — and after the character which the 
disavowal of admiral Berkley's own government has given to his 
conduct, what confidence can be claimed or due to the proceedings 
cf a court martial of his associates, held to sanction his proceed- 
ings. The three other men had not even been demanded in his or- 
ders; they were taken by the sole authority of tne British searching 
"lieutenant* after the surrender of the Chesapeake, There was ncs 



19 

the shadow of a pretence before the court martial that they were 
British subjects, or born in any of the British dominions. Yet, by this 
court martial, they were sentenced to suffer death. They were re- 
prieved from execution, only upon condition of renouncing their 
rights as Americans, by voluntary service in the king's ships — they 
have never been restored. To complete the catastrophe with which 
this bloody tragedy was concluded, admiral Berkley himself, in sanc- 
tioning the doom of these men — thus obtained — thus tried— and thus 
sentenced — read them a grave moral lecture on the enormity of their 
crime, in its tendency to provoke a war between the United States 
and Great Britain. 

Yet amidst all this parade of disavowal by his government — amidst 
all these professions of readiness to mak£ reparation, not a single 
mark of the slightest disapprobation, appears ever to have been 
manifested to that officer. His instructions were executed upon the 
Chesapeake in June — Rumours of his recall have been circulated 
here — But on leaving the station at Halifax in December, he receiv- 
ed a complimentary address from the colonial assembly, and assured 
them in answer that he had no official information of his recall. 
From thence he went to the West Indies; and on leaving Bermuda 
for England, in February, w%s addressed again by that colonial go- 
vernment, in terms of high panegyric upon his energy, with mani- 
fest allusions to his achievement upon the Chesapeake. 

Under all these circumstances, without applying any of the max- 
ims of a suspicious policy to the British professions, I may still be 
permitted to believe that their ministry never seriously intended to 
make us honorable reparation, or indeed any reparation at all for 
that "unfortunate affair M 

It is impossible for any man to form an accurate idea of the Bri- 
tish policy towards the United States, without taking into considera- 
tion the state of parties in that government; and the views, charac- 
ters and opinions of the individuals at their helm of state— a liberal 
and a hostile policy towards America are among the strongest marks 
of distinction between the political systems of the rival statesmen of 
that kingdom — the liberal party are reconciled to our independence: 
and though extremely tenacious of every right of their own country, 
are systematically disposed to preserve peace with the United States* 
Their opponents harbor sentiments of a very different description— 
their system is coercion — their object the recovery of their lost do- 
minion in North America — this party now stands high in power— 
although admiral Berkley may never have received written orders 
from them for his enterprise upon the Chesapeake, yet in giving his 
instructions to the squadron at Norfolk, he knew full well under what 
administration he was acting. Every measure of that administration 
towards us since that time has been directed to the same purpose- 
to break down the spirit of our national independence. Their pur- 
pose, as far as it can be collected from their acts, is to force us into 
war with them or with their enemies; to leave us only the bitter al- 
ternative of their vengeance or their protection. 

Both these parties are no doubt willing that we should join them 
in the war of tneir nation against France and her allies — The late 
administration would have drawn ua into it by treaty, the gresea| 



30 / 

are attempting it by compulsion. The former would have admitted 
us as allies, the latter will have us no otherwise than as colonists. 
On th€ late debates in parliament, the lord chancellor freely avowed 
that the orders of council of lith November, were intended to make 
America at last sensible of the policy of joining England against 
France. 

This too, sir, is the substantial argument of Mr. Pickering's letter. 
The suspicions of a design in our own administration to plurge us 
into a war with Britain, I never have shared. Our administration 
have every interest and every motive that can influence the conduct 
of man to deter them from any such purpose. Nor have I seen any 
thing in their measures bearing the slightest indication of it. But be- 
tween a design of war witjr England and a surrender of our national 
freedom for the sake of war with the rest of Europe, there is mate- 
rial difference. This is the policy now in substance recommended 
to us, and for which the interposition of the commercial states is cal- 
led. For this, not only all the outrages of Britain are to be f >rg< tten, 
but the very assertion of our rights is to be branded with odium— 
Imjires&ment — '* eutral trade — British taxation — Every thing that 
can distinguish a state of national freedom from a st:~,te of national 
vassalage, is to be surrendered at discretion In the face of every 
fact we are t old to believe every profession — In the midst of every 
indignity, we are pointed to British protection as our only shield 
against the universal conquerer — Every phantom of jealousy and 
fear is invoked — the image of France, with a scourge in her hand, is 
impressed into the service , to lash us into the refuge of obedience to 
Britain — insi uations are even made that if Britain "with her thou- 
sand ships of war, has not destroyed our commerce, it has been 
owing to her indulgence, and we are almost threatened in her name 
with the "destruction of our fairest ci ies." 

Not one act of hostility to Britain has been committed by us, she 
has not a pretence of that kind to allege— but if she will wage war 
upon us, are we to do nothing in our own defence? It she issues or- 
ders of universal plunder upon our commerce, are we not to withhold 
it from her grasp? is American pillage ^ne of those rights which she 
has claimed and cxercis d until we are foreclosed nom any attempt 
to obstruct its collection? Fur wnat purpose are we required to make 
this sacrifice of every thing that can give value to the hame of free- 
nun, this .bandonment of the very rignt of self- preservation? I 3 it to 
avoid a war? alas! sir, it does not offer even this plausiole plea of 
pusillanimity — for, as submission would m ke us to ah substantial 
purposes British colonies, her enemies would unquestionably treat 
us as such, and after degrading ourselves into voluntary servuu 
escape a war with ner, we should incur inevitable war wi n all her 
enemies, and be doomed to s are the destinies of her contiici with 
a world in arms, 

Between this unqualified submission and offensive resistance against 
the war upon maritime neutrality, waged oy the concun^g decrees 
of ail the great btlligeieat powers, the embargo was , and 

has bet n hitherto continued, bo far was it from be i g dt 
France, that it was c leu aied to with raw, and has wi from 

within her reac h all tne means of compulsion w 
decrees would have put in Uer possession. It has aaued to the me- 



21 

tives both of France and England for preserving peace with us, and 
has diminished their inducements to war. 

It has lessened their capacities of inflicting injury upon us, and 
given us some preparation for resistance to them— it has taken from 
their violence the lure of interest — it has dashed the philter of pil- 
lage from the lips of rapine. That it is distressing to ourselves — that 
it calls for the fortitude of a people, determined to maintain their 
rights, is not to be denied. But the only alternative was between 
that and war. Whether it will yet save us from that calamity, can- 
not be determined, but if not, it will prepare us for the further strug- 
gle to which we may be called. Its double tendency of promoting 
peace and preparing for war, in its operation upon both belligerent 
rivals, is the great advantage which more than outweighs all its 
evils. 

If any statesman can point out another alternative, I am ready to 
hear him, and for any practicable expedient to lend him every pos- 
sible assistance. But let not that expedient be, submission to trade 
under British licences, and British taxation. We are told that even 
under these restrictions we may yet trade to the British dominions, 
to Africa and China, and with the colonies of France, Spain and Hol- 
land. I ask not how much of this trade would be left, when our in- 
tercourse with the whole continent of Europe being cut off would 
leave us no means of purchase, and no market for sale? I ask not, 
what trade we could enjoy with the colonies of nations with which 
we should be at war? I ask not how long Britain would leave open to 
us avenues of trade, which even in these very orders of council, she 
boasts of leaving open as a special indulgence? If we yield the prin- 
ciple, we abandon all pretence to national sovereignty. To yearn 
for the fragments of trade which might be left, would be to pine for 
the crumbs of commercial servitude The boon, which we should 
humiliate ourselves to accept from British bounty, would soon be 
withdrawn. Submission never yet sat boundaries to encroachment. 
From pleading tor half the empire, we should sink into supplicants 
for life--— we should supplicate in vain. If we must fall, let us fall 
freemen — if we must perish, let it be in defence of our rights. 

To conclude, sir, I am not sensible of any necessity for the extra- 
ordinary interference of the commercial states, to controul the gen- 
eral councils of the nation. If any interference could, at this criti- 
cal extremity of our affairs have a kindly effect upon our common 
welfare, ?t would be interference to promote union, and not division 
—to urge mutual confidence, and not universal distrust— to strength, 
en the arm, and not to relax the sinews of the nation. Our suffering 
and our dangers, though differing perhaps in degree, are universal in 
extent. As their causes are justly- chargeable, so their removal is de- 
pendant not upon ourselves, but upon others. But while the spirit 
of independence shall continue to beat in unison with the pulses of 
the nation, no danger will be truly formidable Our duties are, to 
prepare with concerted energy, for those which threaten us, to meet 
them without dismay, and to rely for their issue upon Heaven 

lam, with great respect and attachment, dear sir, your f iend 
and humble servant, JOHN QUINCY ADAM& 

Hon. Harrison Gray Otis. 



V 



AlPlPJBStJDtfa. 



July 27, 1824. 
ON the 18th of December, 1807, Mr. Jefferson 
sent a confidential message to both houses of congress, 
recommending an immediate pmtarr,2".<:and enclosing two 
documents, one of which was a recent proclamation of 
the king of Great Britain, authorizing and commanding 
the impressment by his naval officers, of British sea- 
men, from neutral merchant vessels, and the other a 
correspondence between General Armstrong, then our 
minister in France, and the French minister of foreign 
affairs, Champagny, shewing that the emperor Napo- 
leon had finally determined to carry into full execution, 
without regard to the treaty between the United States 
and France, his Berlin decree of 21st November, 1806, 
which had for some months after it was issued, been 
suspended with regard to the vessels of the United 
States. 

The attack by a British squadron upon our frigate 
Chesapeake, had very recently occurred, in conse- 
quence of which all British armed vessels had been 
interdicted from entering the ports of the United States. 
The British Orders in Council of 11th November, 
1807? professedly retaliatory upon the French decree 
of Berlin, had issued, and were already announced in 
the newspapers of the United States, though not yet 
officially authenticated. The general state of our 
commercial affairs was momentous and full of alarm, 
The British government had disavowed the attack up- 
on the Cheshpeake, but instead of giving immediate 
satisfaction for it. had appointed Mr. Kose to come out 
upon a mission of subterfuge and prevarication con- 
cerning it, and at the same moment had issued without 



23 

Botification either to the government of the United 
States, or to their minister in London, the order in 
council, which but for the embargo, would, while Mr. 
Rose was amusing us with the fragrance of his diplo- 
macy, have swept three-fourths of the tonnage of the 
United States into the ports of Great Britain for con- 
fiscation. 

It was in this state of things that the message recom- 
mending the embargo was received and discussed, in 
secret se&i&n, by the senate. The only motive for 
debating it with closed doors was the necessity, if the 
measure recommended was deemed proper, of adopt- 
ing it immediately. Every hour of debate tended to 
defeat the object of the message. For the instant it 
should be known in the commercial cities that an em- 
bargo was impending, the spirit of desperate adventure 
would have rushed to sea, with every plank that could 
have been made to float: and the delay of a w T eek in 
deliberation, instead of sheltering the property of our 
merchants from depredation, would only have cast it 
forth upon the waters to be intercepted by the cruizers 
of both the combating nations. 

The message was referred, in senate, to a committee 
of five, of which general Samuel Smith, himself an 
eminent merchant, brother to the secretary of the navy, 
and in the full confidence of Air. Jefferson, was chair- 
man, and of which 1 was a member. The chairman 
proposed to the committee, to report a bill in compliance 
with the recommendation of the message. 1 objected 
that the two documents with the message w r ere not suf- 
ficient to justify so strong ami severe a measure as an 
embargo; and enquired, whether besides the general 
notoriety of the dangers, mentioned in the message, the 
executive had other reasons for the measure, which it 
might not be convenient to assign. The chairman said, 
it was expected and hoped that the act would have a 
favourable effect, to aid the executive in the negociation 
with Mr. Rose; and also that it was intended as a sub- 



24 

stitution for the non-importation act, which had passed 
on the 18th of April, 1806, but pending the negotia- 
tions had been suspended until the 14th of December, 
1807, only four days before the message. This act was 
itself nearly equivalent to a total commercial non- 
intercourse with Great Britain; and to have repealed, 
or longer suspended it at that time, would have been a 
surrender at discretion, upon all the subjects of contro- 
versy, then in so high a state of aggravation, with that 
power. To these reasons I yielded, and the bill for 
laying the embargo was reported to the Senate with the 
unanimous assent of the committee. 

The bill was opposed in the Senate, very feebly up- 
on its merits, and exclusively by the federal members, 
then only four in number. The principle effort made 
by them was to obtain delay, which would, as has been 
shown, have defeated in a great measure the object of 
the bill. They obtained agr.inst the bill only the vote 
of Mr. Maclay of Pennsylvania, and of Mr, Crawford, 
then a new member, but who afterwards constantly sup- 
ported the adherence of the administration to the act, as 
long as it was continued. 

In assigning to the Senate very briefly my reasons 
for assenting to the bill, and for the belief that it ought 
to pass without delay, I admitted that the two docu- 
ments transinitfed with the message, would not have 
been of themselves, to my mind, sufficient to warrant 
the measure recommended in it: but referring to the (ex- 
isting state of things, of public notoriety, and denomi- 
nated in the message 'nhp present crisis/ 1 1 observed 
that the executive, bavins; recommended the measure 
upon his responsibility, had doubtless other reasons for 
it which I was persuaded were satisfactory: that with 
this view, convinced of the expediency of the bill, 1 was 
also impressed with the necessity of its immediate adop- 
tion; that it was a time, not for deliberation bui for ac- 
tion; and that I wished the bill, instead of lingering 
through the dilatory process of ordinary legislation, 



25 

might pass through all the stages of its enactment in a 
single day* With these views a decided majority of 
the Senate concurred. The rule which required that 
bills should be read three times on three different days, 
was suspended; all motions of postponement were dis- 
carded, and the bill was passed in the Senate by a vote 
of S3 to 6 

My allusion to the recommendation of the executive 
upon his responsibility and to my confidence in it, was 
purposely made in general terms ; but it had reference 
to the reasons which had been assigned to me in the 
committee, by the chairman. I deemed it less necessa- 
ry to specify them, because as I have observed, the op- 
position to the bill upon its merits was exceedingly 
feeble ; scarcely calling for an answer. 

About two months after the embargo had been enact- 
ed, and while it was bearing with severe pressure upon 
the commercial, navigating and fishing interests of the 
north, Mr. Pickering wrote a letter to the governor of 
Massachusetts, for communication to the legislature, de* . 
nouncing the executive and congress of the United 
States, for passing the embargo ; and calling for the in* 
terpjsition of the commercial states to save the country 
from ruin; The governor sent it back to him, with a 
letter of rebuke for expecting him to make such a com- 
munication to the legislature. Mr. Pickering, appre- 
hensive, as he says, that he should not obtain his object 
through the governor, sent a copy to his excellent friend, 
George Cabot, (since President of the Hartford 
Convention,) who after waiting a few days, finding 
that the original was not communicated to the legisla- 
ture, sent a copy to the printer. 

^The governor of Massachusetts, in his answer to Mr.\ 
Pickering, had stated that my opinion had been and 
still was in favor of the embargo. Mr. Pickering re- 
plied, and in terms supplied by his feeling* at the time, 
charged me with having in the debate on the embargo, 
expressed a sentiment which resolved the whole busi- 
c 



£§ 

ness of legislation into the will of the executive. To 
support the charge, he quoted several words, which he 
said I had used in the debate, and which detached from 
this context, and from the explanation I have now giv- 
en, might deserve all the severity of his commentary. 

In the same letter Mr. Pickering explicitly admitted 
that I had never given him the slightest cause of offence* 
and that in five years of service together as Senators 
ftom the same state, "though often opposed in opinion^ 
« on national measures, there had never existed for a 
<< moment any personal difference between us." I no- 
tice now this admission, merely to mark the period and 
the manner in which this mutual respect and forbear 
ancebetween us ceased, and to whom it was justly im- 
putable. 

On my part it did not cease even then. It was im- 
possible to have framed a charge more destitute of foun- 
dation; more easily refuted; or more open to the chas- 
tisement of severe retaliation. Yet I took no public 
notice of it; nor shall I now go further beyond the 
simple declaration that I never expressed or felt the 
$enti?nent imputed to me by Mr. Pickering, than to 
observe, that if I had uttered it, and had been under- 
stood in the sense which he has given to my words, it 
was his duty, and the duty of every Senator present, 
who so understood me, not only to have had my words 
taken down at the time, but instantly to have called me 
to order for using them. The words as Mr. Picker- 
ing professes to have understood them, were undoubt- 
edly in the highest degree disorderly — and a decisive 
proof that they were not generally so understood is 
found in the circumstance, that no exception was taken 
to them at the time. It is a rule of the Senate and of 
all equitable deliberative assemblies, that exceptionable 
words shall not only be taken down at the time when 
spoken, but that he who speaks them shall immediate- 
ly be called to account for, to retract, or to explain 
4cm. Had this rule been observed by Mr. Picker- 






*7 

ing, when called upon to explain what I meant 
by reference to the recommendation of the execu- 
tive, upon his responsibility, and to the other rea- 
sons, which he might have, and which I had no 
doubt were satisfactory, 1 should have had the oppor- 
tunity of giving the explanation herein contained, and 
of shewing that my words imported no sentiment even 
of improper deference for the opinions or wishes of the 
executive. But it is also a breach of order, to refer by 
way of censure, at one time, to words spoken at ano= 
ther; and a rule equally just that no member shall be 
called to account in any other place, for words spoken 
in the Senate, These rules are founded upon princi- 
ples which every man of a fair and honorable mind feels 
himself bound to observe ; and they apply with pecu- 
liar force to a debate with closed doors, which is in its 
nature secret and confidential. 

The error of Mr. Pickering's charge consists in his 
connecting my expression of confidence in the recom- 
mendation of the executive, which I assigned as one of 
my reasons for agreeing to the act, with my argument 
for the necessity of despatch, which was founded in the 
nature of the act itself, and the portentous crisis of the 
limes. 

The reference to the recommendation of the execu- 
tive was made in answer to the objection that the docu- 
ments sent with the message did not justify the meas- 
ure recommended in it. Knowing that there were 
other reasons, and referring to them for the justification 
of my own vote, both in committee and in the Senate, 
in favour of the bill, nothing could have been farther 
from my thoughts, as nothing would have been more in 
conflict with the whole tenour of my conduct through 
five years of active service as a member of the Senate, 
than the utterance of a sentiment of subserviency to the 
will, or even to the wishes of the executive. 

The confidence in the executive which I avowed, 
was applicable to the particular circumstance* of the 



£8 

time, and to the particular subject in discussion. Nor 
was that confidence misplaced. In the house of repre- 
sentatives the embargo message was debated three days 
on the merits— but after the three days the house came 
to the same conclusion at which the senate had arrived 
in four hours. It was a wise, a provident, and, above 
all, a purely patriotic measure. The share that I had 
in it, and the part that 1 took in promoting it, remain? 
among the transactions of my public life to which my 
memory recurs with the most gratifying recollections 
Many other events have been less trying to the forti- 
tude of adversity, and more favoured by the vicissi- 
tudes of fortune: but on no occasion has the conscious- 
ness of upright intentions, and a spirit independent 
alike of obsequiousness to executive will, and of fac- 
tious opposition borne me with more firm and even step 
through the temporary furnace of affliction, and sus- 
tained me under the abandonment of friends, the alien- 
ation of popular favour at home, and all the obloquy 
that Mr. Pickering and his co-adjutors have from that 
day to this been able to conjure upon my head. 

Between the system of policy, of which the embargo 
was a prominent measure, and that of which Mr. Pick- 
ering and his friend the president of the Hartford con- 
vention were the "pillars of state," the final and irre- 
vocable sentence of time has now passed — I shall not 
dwell upon it. 

If there be a lesson of political wisdom, which the 
people of this union have had cause to learn from their 
own experience, as well as from the uniform tenour of 
human history, it is that of carrying a temper of mutual 
forbearance, through all their divisions; of making the 
party feeling, which never can include more than a por- 
tion of Ihe republic subordinate to the civic spirit which 
embraces the whole. In the collisions of political sys- 
tems, it is the duty of the citizen to take his stand upon 
deliberate conviction, and to pursue his principles, re- 
gardless of consequences to himself. But when the 



29 

conflict is past, and the contest of principle is at an end, 
both parties, and above all, the prevailing party, should 
remember, and practice upon the maxim of the Roman 
republic, that in civil dissensions, success was but a 
lesser evil than defeat, and that no honours of triumph 
could ever be awarded to victory* 

JOHN QU1NCY ADAMS, 






LrfC. 



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